Utility locating system with mobile base station

Abstract

Mobile base stations for use with one or more portable utility locators to aid in determining the location of a particular locator during operation and to receive information associated with the utility for storage and/or retransmission to other devices or systems are disclosed.

The invention claimed is: 
     
       1. A mobile buried utility locating system, comprising:
 one or more portable buried utility locators including a wireless communications transceiver for wirelessly communicating with an associated mobile base station; 
 one or more associated portable buried utility locator transmitters including a wireless communications transceiver for wirelessly communicating with the mobile base station; and 
 the mobile base station, the base station including: 
 a vehicle; 
 a plurality of antennas disposed on the vehicle, the antennas including a positioning system antenna for receiving positioning signals for determining positions information of the vehicle and a wireless local area network (WLAN) antenna for receiving and sending radio signals; 
 a positioning system receiver, operatively coupled to an output of the positioning system antenna, for determining positioning information of the vehicle based on the received positioning signals; 
 a WLAN antenna and a WLAN transceiver, operatively coupled to an output of the WLAN antenna, for receiving and sending radio signals including data from and to the one or more buried utility locator transceivers and the one or more buried utility locator transmitter transceivers; 
 a processing element disposed on or mounted to on the vehicle, wherein the processing element is configured to communicate with the one or more positioning system receivers and the WLAN transceiver to process data received from the one or more buried utility locators and one or more buried utility locator transmitters and store positioning data determined in the positioning system receiver in conjunction with the locator and/or transmitter data in a non-transitory memory; and 
 a power supply subsystem, disposed on or mounted to the vehicle, for providing electrical power for the processing element, positioning system receiver, and WLAN transceiver. 
 
     
     
       2. The system of  claim 1 , wherein the positioning system is a satellite positioning system. 
     
     
       3. The system of  claim 2 , wherein the positioning system in is a GPS system. 
     
     
       4. The system of  claim 2 , wherein the positioning system is a GLONASS system. 
     
     
       5. The system of  claim 1 , wherein the positioning, system is a terrestrial positioning system. 
     
     
       6. The system of  claim 1 , wherein the WLAN is a WiFi system. 
     
     
       7. The system of  claim 1 , wherein the WLAN is a Bluetooth system. 
     
     
       8. The system of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises a wherein the vehicle
 comprises a truck with a cap-type structure disposed on a bed of the truck and the antennas are disposed on an exterior surface of the cap-type structure. 
 
     
     
       9. The system of  claim 8 , wherein the receiver and processing element are disposed within a space enclosed by the cap-type structure. 
     
     
       10. The system of  claim 9 , wherein the cap-type structure, receivers and processing element are mechanically configured to be rollably or slidably removable from the truck. 
     
     
       11. The system of  claim 1 , wherein the base station further comprises one or more sensors including a multi-axis accelerometer, a multi-axis compass sensor, a multi-axis gyroscope, a barometer, a light sensor, and a temperature sensor, wherein the one or more sensors are coupled to the processing element for providing sensor output data to the processing element, associating the sensor data with data provided to the processing element from the one or more utility locators, and storing the associated sensor data and data provided to the processing element in a non-transitory memory on the vehicle. 
     
     
       12. The system of  claim 3 , wherein the base station provides real time kinetic (RTK) data to the one or more utility locators for use in correcting GPS positional infor-mation determined at the one or more utility locator transmitters. 
     
     
       13. The system of  claim 3 , wherein the GPS comprises GPS information received from GPS signals. 
     
     
       14. The system of  claim 13 , wherein the GPS information includes timing information. 
     
     
       15. The system of  claim 13 , wherein the GPS information includes positional information associated, with a position of the mobile base station.